Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 20, 1991 TAG: 9102200591
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium
A study found that those who regularly used multivitamin supplements were 37 percent less likely to have cataracts. Experts suspect the key nutrients are anti-oxidants, substances such as vitamins A and E that counteract the damaging effects of oxygen.
However, the study's authors said they were unwilling to recommend that people take vitamins or alter their eating habits until more research is done.
"We know that taking vitamin supplements decreases the risk," said Dr. Leo Chylack, a co-author of the study at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
"We really can't make the jump between these findings and public health recommendations," he said. "The risk of taking vitamin supplements is low. Is there any harm? Probably not. But we can't say there is any real benefit yet."
The study, directed by Dr. Christina Leske of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was based on 1,380 people ages 40 to 79 who were treated at two Boston hospitals. It was published in the February issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.
Dr. Allen Taylor, a leading researcher in the study of cataracts, said the study's "public health ramifications are considerable."
"The general message will be that one can diminish the risk of developing cataracts by the use of relatively elevated levels of some of the anti-oxidant nutrients," said Taylor, head of the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University.
About 50 million people around the world are blind because of cataracts. Surgery is the only treatment, and in the United States alone doctors perform more than 540,000 of these operations each year at a cost of $3.8 billion.
by CNB